First meeting with images and audio! (of a kind...)

We had a lively first meeting with a bit of meandering and a few tangential jags too.  Since the subject of Contemporary Art is so large and unwieldy - what else could we expect?  For those of you present at the first meeting, please feel free to add a comment or a question below.  If you are following along online, you are invited to add your comments/questions too.  The readings from week 1 are on the archive page.  Each Participant was asked to fill out a brief survey after the meeting.  Questions included the name of their current favorite artist or work of art, and their favorite yet most obscure band or song.  Clicking on each image will take you to a youtube link of each participant’s favorite song.  For me, this combination of images and audio acts as a metaphor for the intricacies and complexities that is Contemporary Art.  

Images: 1)Jackson Pollock - Autumn Rhythm, 1950, 2)Dale Chihuly, 3)Georgia O’Keeffe - From the Lake 1924, 4)Patricia Cronin - Memorial to a Marriage (I apologize for some brief commercials in front of the songs on youtube.) 

For the next meeting we decided we would focus on a few specific artists. We will look at their work and read a bit about them.  Although my intention is for this group to function collaboratively, I will select this first group of artists. Because our meeting time is just a bit over an hour, we will look at two artists, the sculptor and installation artist Sara Sze and Photographer Gregory Crewdson for 2/24.  Plan to find something in the readings about each artist that particularly interested you to share with the group.

Here are the names of two more artists we might read about next:  Jeremy Deller and Julie Mehretu. (Feel free to look them up on your own and see what you think.) Links for readings are on the right.  

Below are a few nice questions that came from one of the readings from the last meeting, by Art 21.  As we talk about all of these artists we will try to consider their work as it relates to us, right here in Chatham, NY.  Hope to see you at the library.  By survey choice snacks may include baked goods!

• A work of art can be produced using many different working methods and processes
• Art can serve as a form of critique (social or political)
• Art often references or appropriates elements from multiple disciplines and sources
• Art often integrates new technologies (digital media, computers, the Internet) or unconventional materials (found objects, nature, the body).
• Art often blurs the boundaries between art and everyday life
• Art can exist outside of traditional exhibition forums
• Art can unfold over time